25 Days of Christmas Cross Stitch Freebies

There are a lot of great old cross stitch patterns on the Internet, and a lot of good free content if you’re willing to dig around for it.

I’ve had this link to a freebie page from Aurifil (which is a thread maker, apparently) for a long time, but I just clicked on it again recently and realized there was a whole set of little Christmas cross stitch patterns on it.

They were originally presented as a Christmas in July project, but you can grab the whole set or any of them that you like to stitch up just in time for the holidays.

There’s a whole array of projects, including:

gingerbread person
Christmas dogs and cats
stockings
make a wish with an ornament and candy cane
Christmas hats
letters to Santa
snowflakes
reindeer
a traditional Santa and a surfing Santa
Christmas trees made out of different shapes (and other Christmas tree projects)
mistletoe
ornaments
Merry Christmas with holly

There’s also a set of blackwork designs that looks like stars or snowflakes you can use to fill in the background on a project or use as an allover design.

The projects range in size and number of colors involved. The stockings one shown above, for example, uses five colors of thread and measures 46 by 44 stitches if I can count right.

You can stitch these projects as they are or combine designs to make your own Christmas samplers. Or just stitch a portion, such as a single one of these stockings, to make a Christmas ornament or greeting card.

You can grab all of these patterns, as well as a few other freebies, at the Aurifil website. Tip: click on the name of the pattern under the picture and it will automatically start a download of a PDF of the pattern.

[Photo: Aurifill]

If you love to cross stitch bookmarks, Yellow Birdie Stitches is the Etsy shop for you. The shop is based in the UK and almost all of its designs are bookmarks (there are also some cute square designs).

You’ll find bookmarks about everything from romance novel tropes to Asian inspired towers, cats and Art Nouveau designs.

This one of a mermaid reading would be fun for summer, whether for you or for a mermaid loving person in your life. It measures 24 by 78 stitches and the patterns offer measurements for three different stitch counts, but it’s about 1.75 by 3.5 inches (or 4.4 by 8.8 cm) when stitched on 14 count fabric.

It’s shown here on white fabric but the pattern also recommends light green or blue if you have that in your stash. It calls for 14 colors (or 15 if you choose to use Light Effects thread for part of the project) and it looks like it’s all whole cross stitches with a fair bit of back stitching.

You’ll also need some felt or card stock to finish the back of your bookmark, though it is shown freshly stitched here.

In addition to the bookmarks you’ll also find some square designs that I think are designed to be coasters or mounted onto greeting cards, but of course you could frame them in a small square frame as well.

The cat section has several of these with a cats and bonsai theme. There’s also a coffee set that includes a bookmark, coaster and keychain fob. You’ll also find some seasonal designs.

In addition to the above mentioned categories, you’ll find bookmarks with birds, bugs and dragons; patterns for spring, summer, autumn, Easter, Halloween and Christmas; fantasy designs and projects for tea lovers.

So grab an audiobook and a project form Yellow Birdie Stitches to make for your next paper book read.

[Photo: Yellow Birdie Stitches]

Have you read?